The hypertext markup language (or HTML) is commonly used to define the structure for presenting content in a web-page. Web pages that are prepared using HTML can be viewed with a variety of web browser application programs. In addition, HTML web pages can be viewed on different computing systems that may otherwise be incompatible with one another. As such, HTML has been adopted throughout the computing community as a common platform for web page development to provide transportability of content between computing systems.
HTML employs a set of standard codes or “markup tags” that are used to define the format (e.g., text color, font size, etc.) and location associated with text, images, and other content. In general, a web browser builds a web page by retrieving the text file associated with the web page and interpreting the markup tags in the text file to format the web page for viewing. An example web page typically includes text, graphic images, and links to other web pages.
Although very useful in itself, HTML does not generally have any provisions for interactive behavior with the user. Dynamic HTML (or dHTML) is a technology where HTML web pages can change after the web-page is loaded. Interactive controls can be provided to the web pages by embedding executable scripts in the web page. Example executable scripting languages include JavaScript, PERL and CGI. Although scripts can be embedded in the HTML based web-page, it is typically preferable to keep scripts external to the HTML web page to keep the scripts modular and portable. In some instances, text files or inserts that include instructions written in a programming language such as C, C++, or Basic can be interpreted similar to a script. Interactive controls can also be provided to web pages by attaching binary executable programs. Example binary executables include executable programs that are written in a computing language such as Basic, C, C++, and Java, to name a few. Various “plug-in” and “active X” technologies can be installed into the web-browser to handle binary executables, as well as some scripting mechanisms.